


left my shoes in the street (so you'd carry me)

by ace_verity



Category: Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (2020), DC Extended Universe
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Pre-Relationship, Touch-Starved, in the form of reckless behavior
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-10
Updated: 2020-05-10
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:28:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24112807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ace_verity/pseuds/ace_verity
Summary: In a way, Helena thinks, it was worth it. The pain of the wound fades in her memory, a dull, nagging itch even now, in comparison to the life that seemed to flow from Dinah to Helena through the fragile, fleeting contact of their skin.---Helena doesn't mind getting hurt. Not when it means that Dinah will be there to take care of her.
Relationships: Helena Bertinelli & Dinah Lance & Renee Montoya, Helena Bertinelli/Dinah Lance
Comments: 29
Kudos: 222





	left my shoes in the street (so you'd carry me)

**Author's Note:**

> This story contains elements of reckless behavior bordering on self-harm that could be potentially triggering: basically, Helena allows herself to be injured in order to be comforted. If that might be an issue, then this may not be the story for you. (None of the injuries are overly graphic, and the story ends happily.)
> 
> Title from [clementine](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmMYW4Yex0Y) by Halsey.

The first time it happens is completely unintentional.

It's a stupid mistake, really: Helena sees the knife half a second too late, and while she manages to dodge in time to avoid a more serious injury, the blade catches her on the arm and tears through the fabric of her jacket as well as the skin underneath.

It doesn't hinder her much at all. If anything, it makes her even more angry, and the thug she's up against is on the ground in a matter of seconds as Helena straightens up, shaking the soreness out of her bruised knuckles. 

"Good work, ladies," Renee tells them approvingly, surveying the prone forms of the gang members they'd targeted. "Everyone alright?"

"I'm fine," Dinah answers as she joins them, and Helena opens her mouth to add her assent — she can take care of her injury later on her own; it wouldn't be the first time — but then Dinah's hand is on her arm.

"Shit, Killer, you got hit? This is gonna need stitches." Dinah tugs gently at the fabric, easing the tattered edges away from the wound to study it further. Her touch is light and careful, and Helena is torn between pulling away and leaning into the contact. 

She steps back and instantly regrets the loss of the connection and the way Dinah frowns. "I can do it myself."

"One-handed?" Renee looks at her dubiously. "Don't think so. I'll keep an eye out here, make sure GCPD gets this taken care of. Canary, you mind patching her up?"

"'Course not." Dinah starts walking, then pauses and turns when she realizes Helena is still rooted in place. "You comin' or what?"

It's not like she has much of a choice at this point, so Helena follows. She’s been to Dinah’s apartment before, but always with Renee until now. It isn’t a far walk, but by the time they’re at Dinah’s door, Helena’s arm is throbbing, the night air burning against the gash.

Once they’re inside and Dinah’s disappeared into the bathroom to fetch the first aid kit, Helena gingerly slips her jacket off and holds it over the crook over her elbow, twisting to get a better look at the cut. As much as she hates to admit it, she’s glad that she won’t have to try and stitch it up herself. Luckily, though, it’s not terribly deep; she flexes her fingers and wrist with no issues, so the wound must not reach past the skin. 

“Let’s get that cleaned up, alright?” Dinah says, emerging with the first aid kit in hand. She sets it on the counter and starts washing her hands, then turns back to catch Helena’s eye. “You want to sit on the counter? Might be easier for me.”

Helena does as she’s asked, feeling a bit childish perched on the counter with her legs dangling above the floor, and Dinah smiles at her reassuringly as she wets a washcloth and starts dabbing at the drying blood on Helena’s arm. Helena flinches a bit at the touch, and Dinah pulls back. 

“Too cold?”

“It’s fine,” Helena says. “Sorry.”

“No need to apologize.” Dinah resumes cleaning the skin, and bit by bit, Helena finds herself relaxing into the touch. 

“This is gonna sting,” Dinah warns when she sets the washcloth aside and pulls out an alcohol wipe. It does — Helena clenches her jaw hard to keep from making a noise, and her arm feels like it’s on fire even after Dinah throws the wipe away. 

Helena expects the stitches to hurt even worse, but when the needle pierces her skin, she can feel Dinah’s fingers brushing oh-so-gently against the skin, cautious and deliberate, and for some reason Helena is far more aware of that comforting touch than of the bite of the needle. She watches Dinah’s hands as she works, then looks at Dinah’s face — her brow is furrowed in concentration, her bottom lip caught in her teeth — and before Helena knows it, Dinah’s tying off the last stitch, and Helena just barely manages to tear her gaze away from Dinah’s face before Dinah looks up at her. 

“All done.” She steps back, admiring her handiwork, and Helena twists to see as well. The stitches are neat and even, and Helena nods approvingly.

“You’re good at this,” she tells her, and Dinah makes a face that’s half-grin and half-grimace.

“Practice,” Dinah responds, her casual tone belied by a hint of sadness in her eyes. She smooths a bandage over the cut, careful not to disturb the stitches. “There. Be careful, alright? Don’t go tearing them.”

Helena doesn’t know if it’s the effortless concern in Dinah’s voice or the way her touch lingers over Helena’s arm or the coldness she feels when Dinah pulls away that makes a strange, painful lump rise in her throat. All she knows is that she suddenly can’t look Dinah in the eye, and that she feels like the room is much too small — but somehow, she doesn’t ever want to leave.

“I won’t tear them,” Helena says, pushing herself off the counter and landing awkwardly on her feet.

“Whoa.” Dinah steadies her with a hand on her back. “Alright there, Killer?”

“Fine.” It’s more terse than she’d intended, and Helena regrets it instantly — because Dinah draws her hand back and steps away, leaving Helena feeling cold.

“Thank you,” Helena tells her, the words coming out stilted and awkward. “For stitching me up.”

“Hey, anytime. Happy to help.” Dinah hands Helena a glass of water and pours one for herself. “Sure you’re good to go home? You’re welcome to stay if you want.”

 _I do want to stay,_ Helena thinks, and wishes she could say it. She wants to stay, and to keep letting Dinah drop gentle touches to her skin, and to soak in the easy warmth that seems to surround Dinah everywhere she goes. 

But she doesn't know how to tell Dinah that — she knows she _can't_ tell Dinah that, because that would be weird, and weird is bad, and bad would mean the risk of losing one of the very few people in the city who Helena actually knows and likes.

So she tells Dinah that she's fine, thanks her for a second time, and makes her way back to her (bare, empty) apartment.

Helena lies in bed that night, runs a finger over the bandage on her arm as if she can recreate the warmth, the companionship of Dinah's touch. It doesn't work, of course: Helena's fingers are cold, dry skin rasping against the bandage, and Dinah's had been warm and smooth and alive. 

In a way, Helena thinks, it was worth it. The pain of the wound fades in her memory, a dull, nagging itch even now, in comparison to the life that had seemed to flow from Dinah to Helena through the fragile, fleeting contact of their skin. 

It was worth it, Helena thinks, and that's where it starts.

No matter how hard Helena tries, she can’t quite remember the comfort of her mother’s arms embracing her, the way her father would ruffle her hair and call her _patatina_ in his deep bass voice, the fit of Pino’s hand in hers. Those memories are long gone, worn away by years of roughness and hard edges. The men who raised her were good and honest, but not gentle or fond: a rough pat on the back after a good day in training was the most Helena could expect in terms of affection. She’d thought that all that time without softness had made her strong, tough, that it had prepared her for nights spent in empty motel rooms, knowing that the next time she would touch another person would be to kill them. 

But when Dinah touches her, it’s not rough or brusque. The gentleness of her hands as she’d stitched Helena’s wound, the press of their legs side-by-side in a dingy bar after a successful fight — it’s nearly intoxicating, driving Helena to distraction. It’s unpredictable, unexpected, and Helena finds herself wishing there were a way to ask for it — and then she realizes that there is a way, though not verbally.

It’s not that she _tries_ to get hurt whenever the Birds are on a mission. That would be stupid, and Helena is not stupid. It’s that she doesn’t quite mind when it happens.

Cracked ribs mean Dinah tugging her shirt upwards to wrap a bandage around Helena’s torso. A hit to the head means probing fingers through her hair and a bag of frozen peas carefully set in place. Cuts mean dabs of Neosporin and butterfly bandages or the sting of alcohol wipes and pull of stitches and the brush of Dinah’s hands against her skin. 

“You’re getting hurt a lot lately,” Dinah observes one night as she finishes patching up Helena’s latest array of cuts and bruises. “Gotta be more careful, Killer.”

“It’s nothing I can’t handle.”

“Well, I know _that.”_ Dinah smiles tightly, with an undercurrent of worry in her gaze. “I don’t like seeing you hurt, alright?”

And Helena doesn’t know what to say to that, so she nods, looking away, and thinks she hears Dinah sigh a bit as she starts putting the first aid kit back together. 

Helena’s torn, now. She hates the look of worry she’d seen, hates the idea of making Dinah sad — but she can’t stand the thought of losing Dinah’s careful touch.

Renee notices, too. She doesn’t say anything when Dinah’s around, just watches the two of them with an unreadable expression, but once Dinah’s gone off to shower, she fixes Helena with a piercing look. 

“Kinda strange that the trained assassin gets hurt more than me and Canary put together,” she remarks. “You sure you’re at the top of your game, Killer?”

Helena bristles at the implication. “I’m fine,” she bites out, eyeing Renee warily.

“I’m just sayin’, seems like you could be more careful.” Renee isn’t fazed by her temper, just looks at her levelly. “Give it a shot, would you?”

Helena nods stiffly, and Renee studies her for a moment before turning away. There’s a flicker of something like sadness on her face, there and then gone, and the sight of it unsettles Helena. She _is_ being careful, isn’t she? Maybe not quite as fast as she could be, but still fast enough to get the job done. She’s a quick healer, besides, so if she gets a little roughed up — it really isn’t a big deal. 

Helena tries a little harder in the next few weeks, just to avoid suspicion, and it seems to work — Dinah and Renee seem satisfied that she’s taken their words to heart. It’s good, Helena tells herself, good that they aren’t worried. But she feels almost regretful, the nights she walks away from a fight without a scratch back to her own bare apartment, feeling cold and alone without careful hands pressing warm against her skin.

They plan an attack against one of the biggest gangs in Gotham down at the docks one night, and as they crouch in the shadows in wait, Renee goes over their strategy and finishes with a firm, “Be careful, alright?” She looks first at Dinah, then at Helena for longer.

They both nod, and Helena means it — she wants to try, she really does, but she’s been on edge for days, feeling adrift and isolated.

 _Desperate,_ something dark in the corner of her mind whispers. _Needy. Pathetic._

There’s no time to dwell on it, because heavy footfalls echo in the warehouse, and Renee tells them to _go,_ and then they’re fighting. It’s seamless at first, easy and natural, but then backups start arriving and the three of them keep at it, unflagging, but it’s getting harder, and Helena can feel herself getting reckless with desperation. 

And then one of the thugs is aiming a gun at Dinah, who has her back turned, and Helena doesn’t stop to think — she doesn’t, not for a second, so it’s not like she _wants_ it to happen, even though maybe if she had thought for a moment she could have easily disarmed him.

She doesn’t think, just flings herself between the end of the gun and Dinah, like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Helena doesn’t hear the _crack_ of the gunshot, or the one that follows when Renee pulls out her own gun and drops the guy with a perfect shot through the chest. She doesn’t hear it, but _goddamn_ she feels it burning like spreading fire in her side, blood spilling hot and sticky against her skin. The world warps around her, twisting oddly, and then she’s staring up at the ceiling of the warehouse. There’s someone underneath her, one of the guys they’d taken down, and she knows it because the feeling of piled bodies is forever seared in her memory even fifteen years later as the last time she'd felt her mother's touch.

“Helena? Look at me, hey!” And then Dinah’s there, and Helena tries to focus on her face. One hand cups her cheek, and Helena smiles, because the touch is so warm and soft and maybe that alone could bring her back to perfect health. Hands press at her side, too, sending searing pain racking through her body, but Dinah’s hands are gentle on her face. She can hardly breathe through the pain, but Dinah’s hands are on her face and even as her vision turns black at the edges, Helena leans into the touch and thinks that it’s worth it.

The first thing Helena registers when she wakes is the touch: fingers carding through her hair, a palm against her forehead. She doesn’t open her eyes, because she’s comfortable and warm and doesn’t really want to move, but the fingers in her hair go still.

“Helena? You with me?”

It’s Dinah, and Helena can’t lie to Dinah, so she blinks her eyes open. She tries to speak, but her throat is too dry, and the only noise that comes out is a dry rasp.

“Here.” Dinah helps her sit up a bit, propping her up with a hand on her back and sitting at her side, and holds a glass of water with a straw up to her mouth. Once Helena drinks half the glass, Dinah sets it back down, but doesn’t pull her hand away from where it rests between Helena’s shoulderblades. 

“How are you feeling?” she asks, voice soft as she studies Helena’s face.

The fire in her side has subsided to a dull, throbbing ache, and her head feels fuzzy, but it’s an improvement from last night, so Helena manages to respond, “Okay. Hurts.”

“Yeah, I bet. Renee’s out getting medicine from Harley, she should be back soon. Bullet went clean through. We think it missed anything important, ‘specially since you’re up and talking already. You got lucky.” There’s a furrow between Dinah's eyebrows that Helena wants to smooth away.

“I’m fine,” she promises, to make it go away.

It doesn’t work; the furrow deepens, and Dinah lets out a sigh. “You keep getting hurt, Helena, and you gotta stop.”

She must be on painkillers, because there’s no filter for her words, and Helena says, “But I —” before clamping her mouth shut and thinking that maybe, possibly, she shouldn’t be saying this.

“But what?” Dinah looks deadly serious. “Helena. But _what?”_

“I like…” Helena trails off when she sees the way Dinah’s face twists in worry, sadness, confusion.

“You like getting hurt?” 

“No!” Helena winces as her side throbs painfully. 

Dinah looks relieved, but only for a second. “What do you like?”

“I like…” _God,_ she feels pathetic, trying to say it out loud. Like a little kid. But Dinah’s right there, looking concerned and fearful and _kind,_ and Helena says quietly, “I like it when you, um. Touch me.”

Her cheeks burn with embarrassment, and she twists at the blanket covering her lap and stares down, unable to look at Dinah.

“You — oh. Oh, Helena.” The sympathy in Dinah’s voice is both infuriating and so soothing, and Helena twists the blanket harder until Dinah’s hand lands on hers, stilling the motion. 

“Look at me, Helena.” Dinah’s hand lifts, touches Helena’s chin. “I’m so sorry.”

Helena doesn’t know why Dinah’s apologizing, but Dinah’s eyes are filled with tears, and Helena doesn’t like that at all. 

“It’s stupid,” she whispers, and Dinah shakes her head.

“No. Don’t you say that, alright? It’s not.” Her hand drops back, wraps around Helena’s and squeezes tight. “You want me to hold you, I’ll never say no. Alright? But please, Helena, don’t you dare let yourself get hurt for this. I don’t want that.” Her eyes are intense with their sincerity. “You don’t need to get hurt for me to take care of you. To touch you. Okay?”

Helena nods, and now she thinks that _she_ might be crying too, because her eyes sting and go blurry, but she can still see Dinah swipe at her own eyes before smiling.

“I’ll stay right here,” Dinah reassures her, and when she pulls Helena close and runs her fingers through her hair, Helena forgets the pain in her side. 

In the days that follow, Helena finds that she no longer needs an excuse for Dinah to touch her — she just does, without hesitation, in the most casual way. Like it’s natural, like it’s nothing, even though to Helena it’s _everything._ An arm draped over her shoulders, a friendly punch on the shoulder, a squeeze of her knee or grasp of her hand or brush of her hair back from her face, and every time, a silent question in Dinah’s eyes: _Is this okay?_

It always is — far more than okay, actually. Helena basks in the touches, savors them, tucks them away in her memory until they become so frequent and numerous that it’s impossible to track them all. She reciprocates, too, after a while, and it’s strange at first but feels _right_ and makes Dinah smile in the way that makes her eyes crinkle at the corners and her dimples show. 

When they fight, Helena is at the top of her game. The bruises fade and the cuts turn to silvery lines on her skin, and after every fight Dinah makes sure to lean in, to coast gentle fingers down Helena’s wrist and hold onto her hand, and the message is clear to Helena: _you don’t need to get hurt to deserve this._

And one night, they’re all squeezed into Dinah’s apartment — Renee dozing in the armchair, Harley and Cass in the kitchen trying to train Bruce to balance a treat on his snout, and Dinah and Helena pressed together on the couch watching _Monty Python_ on TV. Dinah’s legs are tucked up on the couch cushion, and she’s leaned against Helena’s shoulder and laughing from time to time at the scenes on the television, looking up to let Helena in on the joke. But Helena isn’t watching the TV, because she can’t stop watching Dinah and thinking about how pretty she is and how nice it feels to be next to her like this, and when Dinah catches her looking, Helena isn’t even embarrassed. Dinah just smiles and leans up, capturing Helena’s lips with her own, and then pulls away. 

“Was that okay?” she whispers, close enough for Helena to feel the breath of the words

Helena nods, and Dinah smiles. “Good,” she breathes, and kisses her again. It feels like a supernova of warmth and comfort and everything Helena loves about Dinah, and it would be worth all the pain in the world —

But it doesn’t have to be, not anymore, and not ever again. Because Dinah loves her, and she loves Dinah back, and that’s all they need.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I would love to hear what you think :)


End file.
